Eric Sailers is a speech/language pathologist who has an extensive amount of experience using "apps" in educational settings. He's compiled a great list of apps and related resources on his blog: http://slpsharing.com/app-resources/
Eric spends some of his time giving presentations about the use of Apple's mobile devices in education. He's co-created a few apps, too!
A few years ago, I came across "Phun", a free, hands-on application designed for use in science education. I was impressed, and had the chance to use it with a few students. Phun was Emil Ernerfeldt's MSc Computer Science project, created at the VR lab at Umeå Universityin Sweden, under the supervision of Kenneth Bodin.
Phun is now known as Algodoo, and is part of the family of applications offered by Algoryx, a company that develops multi-physics and 3D simulation software. As you can see from the recent video below, it has improved over the years. The most recent news is that the application was transformed for use on the SMART Board 800 series, and supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.
One of the reasons that I like Algodoo is that it supports social interaction during learning activities, something that can enhance deeper learning among students. It allows students to move and work in a "hands-on" fashion. In schools that have invested stimulus money on technology and now have limited funds for upgrading traditional science equipment, applications such as Algodoo will most likely provide a good "bang for the buck".
Algodoo: Science education for a new generation
"Algodoo is a totally unique program. A program that gives you the opportunity to play with physics - using your own hands. Apply a constructionists learning paradigm, learning by doing. Use simple drawing tools to design, construct and explore with. Sounds like an interesting idea? Watch this video and learn how!"-Algoryx
Algodoo demonstration on a SMART Board 800 multi-touch/multiuser interactive whiteboards:
The TellTable is a collaborative digital storytelling application designed for Microsoft's Surface interactive multi-user multi-touch table. It was used by children in a school library in the UK, and was quite successful. The video below provides an overview about the way the TellTable worked. I think every school library/media center should have something like this!
"TellTable, a system developed in the Soci-Digital Systems group, uses Microsoft Surface technology to provide an interactive storytelling experience, similar to how children would tell stories using physical toys. Children can create various digital characters and sceneries on Surface, made out of photos taken of real world objects and environments as well as finger paintings. By manipulating these characters using multi-touch gestures, children can narrate, act and record imaginative stories together, before sharing them with friends later on.
TellTable was deployed in a primary school, and received overwhelmingly positive feedback. It has seen crowds of kids create stories featuring characters as diverse as Ninja chickens and rampaging teddy bears. Teachers were also enthusiastic about the potential of TellTable as an education tool, to help children develop communication skills and to create interactive tutorials when teaching foreign languages." -- Microsoft Research UK
One of my Facebook friends posted this video of a digital native letting teachers know that in no uncertain terms that they MUST get on board with the interent & technology thing:
I sense that this kid's dad has a job in educational technology- this video might be his way of motivating teachers to get along with the digital natives they face every day in their classrooms.
The above video is a demonstration of Ru Zarin's masters degree project at Umea Universitet.
This project examined ways to use multi-touch technologies to support communication and learning among children with Down syndrome, autism, and related diagnoses within the age group of 5-8. I especially liked the animated social story application.
"Trollskogen is a communicative framework designed to enhance communication among people with cognitive disabilities. The forest is split up into interactive modules that provide a fun and engaging learning environment while helping improve on certain aspects of speech, reading/writing and symbol based languages. This framework has been deployed on a custom multi-touch table prototype built at the Interactive institute Umeå, enabling the children to interact with their fingers in a more natural, intuitive way rather than a traditional keyboard/mouse setup."
Bill Mackenty is an educational technologist and teacher. His Games and Education site/blog provides good links, resources, and ideas, for those of you interested in this topic. Bill also has great "how-two" educational technology links. Share them with your colleagues! Another resource is the FunBrain website. This site is a repository of learning games for students in grades K-8. The teacher resources page includes links to curriculum guides and McREL standards. There is also a parent resource page.
Keep up with news about engaged learning by subscribing to the newsletters from Edutopia. An article and short video about high school students studying animation with the support of professional animators through video-conferencing was recently added to the site.
